


Last Night I Had a Dream About Brian

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Canon, Points of View
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-18
Updated: 2006-10-18
Packaged: 2018-12-26 18:48:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12064905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: Michael thinks about how his dreams compete with reality. --June 26, 2002





	Last Night I Had a Dream About Brian

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

Last night, I had a dream about Brian. It's pretty much the same dream I've been having since I was sixteen, so I can remember every single detail. It almost never changes.

In this dream, I have a real family. Not that my family isn't real, but I've always wished for a dad, too. I have one in this dream - he's loud and embarrassing like my mom, and a drunk like Brian's dad. I guess I don't have the best imagination.

My dream dad would have these big Christmas dinner party things, where he'd invite people he sorta knew to the house and they'd all get trashed. It was embarrassing as hell because my dad was a loud drunk and my house was and still is still an ugly pit, but I have to remember it isn't real. Anyways, in my dream I'm greeting people at the door when this sorta hot older guy walks up the front porch. He's a stonemason/bricklayer or something, and I'm taking his coat and closing the door when he says, "Just wait, my son is still getting the dessert out of the car." 

Three guesses who his son is, and the first two don't count. He's carrying some tupperware full of something, and he hands it to me looking bored as hell. I take the food to the kitchen, then come back and offer to take his coat - really old and worn brown leather, nice lining, really heavy and sorta creaky. I think, that coat probably cost more than our car! He tells me he'll keep it, so I say, "Remember where the closet is, it's going to get hot in here later" and he laughs. Okay, I meant because with 30 people in my house, you can SEE the heat and humidity, but it sounded so dirty, I just blushed. 

So anyways, my dad takes his father down to the rec room with all the other drunken people, and they do their drunken parent thing. That leaves about 12 people upstairs in the kitchen part with me, and him. We talk and eat and drink the terrible red wine my dad bought to go with the turkey (hey, one year it was Kahlua and Kool-aid, after that I stopped complaining.) The other people from upstairs - mostly wives of the drunk people downstairs, and a couple of the drunk people's kids - go downstairs too, leaving a couple of the other kids, and he and I. I clean off the table and try to fit everything into the fridge, which, as always, takes forever, so he comes out to the fridge and starts handing me stuff while I'm trying to fit it in there. I can't get the square container of potatoes to fit, and he crouches down behind me. I can feel his breath on my neck as he reaches past me to move something, and holy shit, is it hot in here or is it just me? He brushes my arm on the way by, and I smile and move out of the way. He fits all the stuff in there way better than I ever could, and I offer him a stolen beer before I shut the fridge door. 

He takes it and we go and sit at opposite ends of the living room (that's how it's set up in my dream, there are two chairs at either end of the room, and the big couch - they make a triangle.) We talk about books - he's reading one I've never heard of, but in the dream I'm witty and charming and I know how to talk about a book I've never read. I ask him questions, smart questions about the plot and setting and pacing that I would never think to ask in real life. I think the book part alone is an hour-long conversation, and I've never talked about any book that long in my life. Then we talk about movies and art (I actually have a favourite artist in my dream, and he's obscure.). Brian hasn't heard of him, so I open a coffee table book (see, I told you this was a dream, we don't have those here) and sit on the arm of his chair, pointing out the different aspects of my favorite painting. (I have a favourite painting, too. This dream is a trip.) 

He holds the edge of the book near my hand as I'm pointing out the island and the rock and the snow, and how it's stark and full of solitude, but that's meant to be strong and not lonely. He's nodding as I trace my finger over the picture. I get up to put the book back, but I don't want to go back across the room and sit, so I offer him another beer. He takes it and just as I'm about to sit back down because I'm hovering, his dad stumbles by, towards the bathroom. He knocks a bunch of stuff off the coffee table on his way through, and Brian jumps up with an embarrassed frown to help me get everything off the floor. I laugh and tell him he has no idea how often all this stuff gets knocked around and not to worry about it. (It's mostly just junk, like yesterday's newspaper and the remote control.) 

We pick everything up, but the remote is missing the batteries, and I say they must have flown out when it hit the floor. We're crawling around the floor on our hands and knees looking for the damn batteries when his father leaves the bathroom and says that they'd have to stay over because he's drunk and the weather is getting bad. Brian says he'll walk home and meet his dad tomorrow, and I have never been so depressed in my whole life to hear that he's running out on me. I want to be brave and cool, so I give his dad a big smile and say "That's fine, we have plenty of room." (Actually, we really don't have *plenty* of room, but lots of couches and whatnot, so it works out.) 

Eventually Brian and I manage to find the stray batteries hiding under the drapes, and I apologize for all the dust on his pants when he gets up off the floor. I start brushing him off really vigorously, and he laughs because I'm being pretty weird about getting off every little speck. He goes back to sit down in the big chair, and I stand beside him, in front of the window, and look outside. It's really, really snowing, but still fine for walking. I sit back on the other chair and we just talk about sports and school and other things that I'm not really very good at, but somehow I can really hold up my end of the conversation. He asks me about my job at the Big Q, and since I'm in a good mood I make it sound fun, which it sort of is. We talk about work stuff for about an hour, and he looks at his watch and says, "Wow, it's really late, I should go." I'm thinking, NOOOOO! so I come over in front of him, just off to the left, and kneel down in front of him. I put my hands on his knees and rest my head on his hands, and say, "Do you really have to go?" and he looks outside and smiles down at me and says, "No, I guess I don't" in a musing way. He's so hot. 

Next thing I know, the house is warmer and louder. I go to open the dining room windows, but he has to help me because they're stuck. (Told you it's a crappy old house.) We get another beer, this makes about a million now, and I think I'm a little too drunk to be driving this attempted seduction without a license. I realize that I'm two seconds from saying something stupid, so I just stand there with my head against the cold glass, trying to sober up so I don't make an idiot of myself. He calls over, "Don't keep all the cold air for yourself" so I come back and sit on the couch, which is the only place in the living room that the air really moves by. He comes and sits beside me, and we sort of just lay back drunk against the pillows, watching people stumble by us on the way to the bathroom and making snarky comments about how drunk they are. (Yeah, okay, like I'm one to throw stones at this point, but my snark gets good when I'm drinking.) He doesn't seem all that drunk to me, so when he starts up a new conversation I think really hard about my answers so as not to sound like a drunken ass. We just talk for a while longer, world politics, science, and he's impressed by my knowledge of world events, and even though I'm dreaming, so am I! At this point I'm stupidly head over heels in love with this guy, because this discussion makes me feel different. Smart. Special. 

It's getting super late, and we're both kind of slouching on the couch, and our shoulders are touching while we talk. Eventually I lean my head on his shoulder and say, "So here's the million dollar question, are you straight?" and he laughs and says, "Not really." I laugh, and he says, "No fair, what about you?" and I said, "I don't think so" which makes him laugh again. We kinda sit there in silence for a minute, but I figured, hey, the worst he's gonna say is no, and so I said, "Well, do you want to take it for a test drive then?" and he looks over at me for a minute and says, "Sure." I just look at him in awe, then, because good God who wouldn't. He kisses me, and frankly he's a much better kisser than anyone I've had before or since, but I think we knew that already. 

Eventually we're on the couch kind of grinding while we're making out, and I say, "We'd better go to the spare room, or the next person upstairs is going to get a show." He laughs and jumps up, then offers me his hand because I'm buried in the couch at this point. He pulls me up and I drag him into the guest room, which by the way is much nicer than my actual guest room, but hey, it's my dream. He asks where the lights are and I reach beside me to a little table lamp with a pink shade, and it gives the room a warm red glow. He laughs and says, "Not everybody has a red light in their house" and I'm unbuttoning his shirt, saying, "Well, they should." We kiss and that's pretty much the end except for the sex, which I really try not to think about because it really hurts. He offers me a cigarette afterwards, which I totally take even though I don't smoke anymore, because if I don't deserve it after that, I never will! 

Like I said, I've been having this dream for most of my life, and I've had time to think about it. Brian is never anything but himself; I'm the one who is different. I'm witty and intellectual. I know art and books and politics, and that the wine my dream dad buys isn't any better than paint thinner. I bond with him instantly and seduce him fearlessly. 

In my dream, I'm Justin, and it kills me to admit it. Of course, I didn't know that there was a "dream me" out there until a couple of years ago, but it was a huge slap in the face. It was like a message that I'd never be what I wanted to be. I'd never be what Brian wanted me to be, because there was already somebody like that out there - a fucking 17 year old twink with talent and more balls than I'll ever have. I can't compete with that. 

It's funny though, I don't have the dream very often anymore. I've started to realize that I don't need to be the "dream me", because the real me is pretty damn good. I have a smart, kind, gorgeous boyfriend, and damned if I know how I got him! He thinks my interests are real, and not leftovers from being 14 and scared. We trust each other. I'm a good friend, I love my family and friends, and they love me back. 

I probably won't ever be with Brian. I'm not sure one night is worth ruining such a long friendship. I would feel clumsy and incompetent, and I don't really want to get in line to feel bad about myself. It wouldn't be me wishing for Brian, it would be me wishing to be a different person. I don't want to be different. I want him to love me for who I am. 

If he can't do that, then fuck him.


End file.
